Ethernet Fundamentals - Part 1

Ethernet is by far the most popular and widely used LAN protocol today. It was invented by Robert Metcalfe during the 70's and was developed hand in hand by DIX (DEC, Intel, Xerox). Robert Metcalfe would later on found 3Com Corporation, one of Cisco's competitors in the world of networking. Coincidentally, 3Com pertains to "Computers, Communication and Comapatibility" just a slight trivia there. This is so because Mr. Metcalfe is an advocate for...

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The MAC Address

The MAC (Media Access Control) address or hardware address is burned in (hence is also called burned-in address) on every Ethernet Network Interface Card or NIC and is unique on every card. It is used by the Ethernet protocol for addressing in the Layer 2 OSI model. It is divided into two parts. The Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI), which is the first 6 HEX digits assigned by IEEE and the second 6 is assigned by the vendors themeselves to uniquely...

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